I ran across this article explaining Fox selling a bunch of their old contracts from the golden age.

Movie studio Fox auctions movie star contracts Wed Dec 20, 8:12 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Movie studio 20th Century Fox will next month auction off more than 200 documents signed by stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Marlon Brando, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.

Proceeds from the sale, set to take place in New York on January 25 through auctioneer Swann Galleries, will benefit the Motion Picture & Television Fund, a charity for Hollywood actors and other employees.

Among the offerings are a 1946 internal memo advising that Norma Jean Dougherty was changing her professional name to Marilyn Monroe; a contract allowing Presley to violate strict grooming codes and wear his hair however he saw fit for "Love Me Tender," his 1956 feature film debut; and Brando's 1951 contract for "Viva Zapata," which paid him almost $125,000 for the film, the trade paper said.

Other contracts on the block have been signed by the likes of Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, Will Rogers, Rita Hayworth, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, Lana Turner, Dean Martin, John Steinbeck, Natalie Wood, the Three Stooges, and Judy Garland, according to Swann's Web site.

Now this last part i found kinda funny

"These papers are so cool that, as a fan of that history, I will have to restrain myself from bidding," Daily Variety quoted studio co-chairman Tom Rothman as saying.

IESB: I've asked you this before, I've talked to Dean Devlin, I've talked to [Roland] Emmerich, I think you know what I am talking about...

TR: ID4 2?

IESB: I know the story, there was a great script, Roland and Dean didn't want to do it, but I talked to Dean and he said he was open to the idea of doing a sequel. It was a huge hit, I still enjoy watching that film.

TR: We would love to do it, it's really a matter of Roland, it's up to Roland. He knows that we'd love to do it. I don't think there is a script but there have been a lot of ideas, but the truth of the matter is he's been making other films. He made Day After Tomorrow for us, big hit movie, he's doing 2012 for Sony. But, any day that Roland wanted to do that, we would be very excited to do it because I think, yes, that story definitely can and should continue.

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IESB: I've asked you this before, I've talked to Dean Devlin, I've talked to [Roland] Emmerich, I think you know what I am talking about...

TR: ID4 2?

IESB: I know the story, there was a great script, Roland and Dean didn't want to do it, but I talked to Dean and he said he was open to the idea of doing a sequel. It was a huge hit, I still enjoy watching that film.

TR: We would love to do it, it's really a matter of Roland, it's up to Roland. He knows that we'd love to do it. I don't think there is a script but there have been a lot of ideas, but the truth of the matter is he's been making other films. He made Day After Tomorrow for us, big hit movie, he's doing 2012 for Sony. But, any day that Roland wanted to do that, we would be very excited to do it because I think, yes, that story definitely can and should continue.

This sounds like a bad, bad idea. For one thing, it's a sequel and we've seen so many goddamn sequels. For another thing, it's a sequel to a film that had a very final kind of ending - humans triumphant, aliens dead, three cheers for the good guys. To do this sequel, then, the alien ships would have to be even bigger and more powerful-seeming, otherwise it will look silly. And if you go bigger than the original, it'll look silly, anyway. To say nothing of requiring probably the biggest effects budget in film history. And with mediocre people like Emmerich and Devlin behind it, it just won't be worth it.

If we absolutely HAD to have a sequel to ID4, I think the only filmmaker working today who could pull it off would be James Cameron.

20th Century Fox is still bathing in money from James Cameron's Avatar. At this point, we're talking dog toilet-paper bucks they've earned so much. So obviously a sequel is happening, right? Sure, but the waiting time for said follow-up looks to be a minimum of four years. Fox does have their fair share of comic-book properties getting the "Reboot" treatment and other sci-fi films such as the Predator and Alien franchises. But still the studio needs an honest-to-Christ event picture – something huge, something like.....wait for it......Independence Day.

They've made no qualms about wanting an ID4 sequel. Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman told as much to IESB a few years back. The problem is various nails in the road have stopped that from happening. For one, producers/writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich cooked up a story but at the time decided they weren't ready to return to that world just yet.

More recent, Emmerich told Latino Review Fox just wasn't willing to cut their teeth over the list price for one Will Smith. Being the only movie-star in the world (an actor who guarantees asses in seats), Smith gets $20 million up front plus first dollar gross. That alone has stopped the studio cold from moving forward. Until now it seems.

IESB has received a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. The plan would be to shoot both films back-to-back. Whether the studio opts to go the Matrix route and release the two films six months apart or do like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and split them by a year remains to be seen. According to our sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011.

This would be Emmerich's next directorial endeavor after his William Shakespeare thriller Anonymous. This would also come after Will Smith's next (which will be either The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3). So this wouldn't interfere with those projects.

The original ID-4 brought in a total of $817,400,891in worldwide box office receipts and you can easily add another $200 million plus in DVD sales and TV rights.That's right, ID4 is a bona fide billion dollar franchise.

Keep in mind, folks, we're still awaiting confirmation from Fox and other sources - who as of now have not yet been able to confirm or deny our story. Even though this comes via a reliable source, we're going to put this in the "Rumor" catalog for the time being.

So it appears fourteen years after the fact (Yes, it has been that long!), we might finally be getting Independence Day sequels..

The IESB will keep you informed on any updates.

P.S. Memo to MTV....Fuck off for what you are going to post after reading this

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I want no part of a sequel, but it does make sense. The aliens are dead or repelled, but what happens when word of their defeat reaches the nearest alien base? I think a fuckload more alien ships come not only to take over Earth but to incinerate every human in sight. And, having learned of their predecessors' fates, they patch that hole in the computer code.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

NIKKI FINKE wrote:Twentieth Century Fox today announced the creation of an in-house program dedicated to the development of emerging writers, new voices, and varied motion picture concepts. It will report to President of Production Emma Watts. "This initiative will be dedicated to the creation of original ideas (not rewrites of existing scripts or the development of library titles) from emerging writers,' Fox said, noting that the program will hire the writers, coordinate relationships with producers, and supervise the development process of ideas generated. Fve writers in comedy and action/adventure will be hired initially. "We have great hopes for this program,” Watts said in a statement. “The goal for this enterprise is to create a place where original ideas are generated and where new writers can feel supported to do their best work.” The initiative will be overseen by both Steve Tzirlin, former VP of development at Lucasfilm Ltd, who will spearhead action/adventure development, and Nicky Weinstock, formerly EVP of comedy development for the movie side of Chernin Entertainment, who will focus on laugher development.

Tzerlin was with Lucasfilm for the last five years, working directly with George Lucas and Rick McCallum on live-action television, film, video game, and animation projects. At Lucasfilm, Tzirlin focused on sourcing emerging writing and directing talent from around the world and as an entrepreneurial producer worked on projects in the works across various media.

But what I don't understand is why the studio hired Weinstock. Anyone who knows Nicky knows he's all talk and little action. And that he's only in business for himself. He's the kind of Hollywood annoyance who constantly is looking for the bigger and better so he can keep clawing his way up the Hollywood ladder by claiming credit for product that a lot of other people were also responsible for. So it comes as no surprise to me that only 19 months after he left Judd Apatow's company to go to work for film president Dylan Clark at Chernin Entertainment, Weinstock is already moving on. Weinstock was Chernin's speechwriter as VP of News Corp's corporate written communications in NYC, and then was asked by Chernin to become VP of comedy development at 20th Century Fox Television. At the end of 2007, Weinstock left to run Apatow Productions with Judd. At Chernin Entertainment, Nicky was hired initially to head comedy development for movies and TV, but the small-screen component of his job lasted for a nanosecond. The only films he ever put into development there were Hawkwood, with Russell Brand attached to star and Jared Stern writing, Rehab with director Will Gluck attached and Sam Laybourne writing, and We've Got Your Girlfriend with Jason Mantzoukas writing.

Of course, Weinstock leaked the news early of his hiring by claiming he alone was in charge of the new Fox Studios writers program. As if that weren't exaggeration enough, he also claimed he was personally wooed by Fox mogul Tom Rothman. Nope.

"This initiative will be dedicated to the creation of original ideas (not rewrites of existing scripts or the development of library titles) from emerging writers,

Awesome. I can pitch Robotdog.

Bison: [to his architect] The temple above us was the wonder of the ancient world. Bisonopolis shall be the wonder of my world. But I think the food court should be larger. All the big franchises will want in.

"This initiative will be dedicated to the creation of original ideas (not rewrites of existing scripts or the development of library titles) from emerging writers,

Awesome. I can pitch Robotdog.

Only if Fox doesn't own C.H.O.M.P.S.

That won't play any part in my project dying. The rape jokes will.

Bison: [to his architect] The temple above us was the wonder of the ancient world. Bisonopolis shall be the wonder of my world. But I think the food court should be larger. All the big franchises will want in.

People like to shit on 20th Century Fox, but Vaughn says they were extremely supportive. Also Fox chief Tom Rothman may not be Satan as previously assumed.

“Fox were the best partners you could imagine and I speak my mind, and if they had screwed me around, I would be shouting it from the rooftops right now,” Vaughn said. “It was such a creatively-rewarding experience working with them and they were so supportive of everything. We had nine weeks of post basically to finish this movie from when we finally wrapped and I was like, ‘We’re never going to do this,’ and they just rallied around me, gave me every tool imaginable, and just kept me feeling like we could do it. (Tom) Rothman and Emma Watts were true allies. They gave me brilliant notes and never tried to interfere, just tried to make the film better. I have no idea why Tom has the reputation he has now, because I would let the guy be my ally on any film I made whether he was a head of the studio or not.”

Borys Kit wrote: 20th Century Fox is in early talks with writer Will Staples to pick up a sci-fi action project that could serve as high-powered reunion of Avatar director James Cameron and star Sam Worthington, with the added firepower of Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Myth, a pitch that would be written by Staples, has drawn the interest of Cameron, who is attached to executive produce, with di Bonaventura and Worthington attached to produce, although no deals have been made yet. Cameron would not direct, and at this stage, Worthington is not attached to star.

Nothing is known about Myth other than it’s big, it’s sci-fi, and it’s got lots of action.

The pedigree alone speaks to the potential scope of the project, and having Staples on board also kicks it up a notch. Along with writing partner Sean O’Keefe (they recently parted ways but will still collaborate on some projects), the duo wrote Apaches for Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney, World’s Most Wanted for Neal Moritz and Universal, and an Alaskan adventure pic for Walden Media.

But Staples’s secret claim to fame is writing video games, most notably Activision’s Call of Duty line of games. (The games are written by several writers and game companies don’t credit scribes like movie studios do.) Call of Duty, apart of from being one of the best-selling games of all time, is also considered one of the best shooter games out there.

Sources caution that the project is in the early gestation stage and that the talent involved could change.

“There’s so much we could do… The ideas I’ve had are all sorts of things, ranging from Full Metal Jacket with apes… you could start this story again eight years from where we left off, the next generation of apes, those that have come from our protagonists, perhaps going in to a conflict with humans and showing real fear, in the same way as going into war for young soldiers in this day and age, telling their story. Or how apes are taking over cities, and being moved into human environments and having to interact with them and deal with things that are part of our culture and understand and evolve through them. Spies that are in the employ of the apes, working against humans and humans maybe existing underground, because that’s a way they can avoid the virus, coming up above ground wearing gas masks, and maybe that’s what dehumanises them.”

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The lifetime achievement honor recognizes a career veteran who has significantly influenced the motion picture business.

Rothman, in addition to overseeing some of the biggest blockbusters in film history, has been a steadfast supporter of independent cinema since the beginning of his career.

In 1994, Rothman launched Fox Searchlight, one of the premiere producers and distributors of specialty film. Prior to Searchlight, he served as president of Samuel Goldwyn Films, where he began his film career.

"We are truly honored to dedicate our Industry Tribute to Tom Rothman, who has made an indelible impact in the film community. Through his work, he has supported the spirit of independent film and given these voices the means to reach audiences, irrespective of the budget size of their work,” said IFP executive director Joana Vicente.

“This year’s tribute embodies an astonishing breadth of work that we are proud to celebrate,” she continued.

Highlights of Mr. Rothman’s 17 years at Fox include Black Swan, Cast Away, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Walk the Line, The Devil Wears Prada, Water for Elephants, The Simpsons Movie, Juno, Sideways, 127 Hours, Little Miss Sunshine, Moulin Rouge, and the two top grossing movies of all time: Titanic and Avatar, as well as the X-Men and Ice Age franchises.

Also during this period, Fox films were nominated for over 100 Academy Awards, winning three best picture awards, including Slumdog Millionaire in 2008.

Throughout his career, Rothman has championed some of the greatest filmmakers of the era, including Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Kenneth Branagh, Anthony Minghella, Spike Lee, Danny Boyle, Baz Luhrmann and Bryan Singer.

Rothman also currently writes and hosts a series on the Fox Movie Channel entitled Fox Legacy giving history and commentary on classic films from the Fox library.

The Gotham Awards--which kick offs off awards season--will be held Nov. 28 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.

Darren Franich wrote:Rise of the Planet of the Apes tore up the box office last weekend, earning $54 million — a surprising showing for the seventh film in a series that’s over 40 years old. EW caught up with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the married screenwriters who crafted the primate preboot, to talk about the exciting difficulty of writing a character who never speaks and their vague-but-intriguing ideas for a Rise sequel — or rather, sequels — including the slight implication that Taylor, the character Charlton Heston played in the original Apes, might be making a return journey.ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It’s interesting that the character audiences are most responding to in the film is Caesar, the rebel chimpanzee played by Andy Serkis. Was it difficult to write a character who doesn’t have any dialogue?

RICK JAFFA:That was our challenge.AMANDA SILVER:It put extra pressure on us, in a good way, to tell a story visually without dialogue. I think — thinking back on my film school days! — that’s what you look for. Yes, Paddy Chayefsky has great dialogue, and you aspire to do that as well. But film is a visual medium, and what can you show and not tell? Caesar was the genesis of the story. Rick came up with the idea for this when he was looking through his idea file. He’d cut out some articles about chimpanzees raised in homes, and he thought, “My god, this would make a great reboot for Planet of the Apes.” We kind of fell in love with Caesar. We didn’t think of him specifically as a chimpanzee. We thought of him as a full character. Because he didn’t have dialogue, it put extra pressure on us in a good way to tell a story visually without the dialogue.

RJ: We did a lot of research, and a lot of reading online, about some very specific primates who have become somewhat well-known. There’s that great documentary out right now, Project Nim; we read about him. There’s another one, Kanzi, who was…

AS: He was a gorilla, right?

RJ: No, I believe he was a….

Amanda and Rick in unison: …A bonobo!

The film bears a slight similarity to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in Apes series. Did you use that film as a signpost for Rise?

RJ: Not in the beginning! We laid out the story and pitched the idea to Fox, and had gotten hired, and okayed to write and produce this thing. It was at that point we went back and started studying the old movies. We already had the movie laid out. I think some of the connections to Conquest are on purpose, but others are coincidental. “Unlikely character becoming a leader and leading his people to freedom” — it’s also a Moses story.

If this is the Moses story — a leader taking his people to freedom — then do you see the potential sequel as a kind of Joshua story, with the Apes fighting wars and conquering the world?AS:I’m touching wood, because I’m superstitious! We definitely have ideas for where the sequel — plural, where the sequels — would take us. And those were kind of built into –

RJ: — the construction of the narrative already. There hasn’t been an official discussion yet about a sequel, because I think everyone still doesn’t want to jinx where we are. But we definitely have ideas.

AS:When we started this, we knew that this movie would stand on its own, and we designed it that way. But if it didn’t stand on its own, we pictured a trilogy that would start with this movie.

I’m definitely intrigued to see what happens to the Icarus mission, the spaceship that hovers around the background of the plot of Rise.RJ: We definitely have ideas about that! What better plant can you put in a script then, “Oh my god, Taylor’s going up again!”One of my favorite parts of the Apes franchise is the pulpy grandiosity of the later titles: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and now Rise of the Planet of the Apes. What’s your dream-title for a Rise sequel?RJ: We’re gonna have to figure that one out. That’s a great question. We do have a good sense of what will be in the sequel. Maybe in 20 years, the last one will be called Success of the Planet of the Apes.AS: It’s that B-movie flair, that excitement. We haven’t found the cheesy-but-fun noun that would fit the action that we’re seeing.RJ: Maybe Revenge.

MIKE FLEMING wrote:20th Century Fox, which tapped into Isaac Asimov’s futuristic robot science fiction for I, Robot, is now working on a live-action adaptation of Asimov’s The Caves of Steel. The studio has set Henry Hobson to direct and John Scott 3 to adapt the murder mystery that was first published as a book in 1954. The director and writer are currently in pre-production on Maggie, a spec script that tracks the six-week metamorphosis of a 16-year-old girl into a zombie after she becomes infected and continues to live with her family. Trained at the Royal College of Art in London as a graphic designer, Hobson specializes in creating inventive title sequences for films that included Sherlock Holmes for Prologue Films. The scribe seems well suited to adapt Asimov’s visionary prose. When not writing scripts, Scott builds command systems for NASA’s flagship X-ray satellite. He works with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which takes photos of X-ray photons in deep space.

The Caves of Steel will be produced by Simon Kinberg, the X-Men scribe whose Genre Films banner is based at the studio and who is right now producing the Neill Blomkamp-directed Elysium, which stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley. Similar to I, Robot (which Fox turned into a hit film with Will Smith), The Caves of Steel is a murder mystery that takes place 1,000 years in the future, on an overpopulated Earth where there is a phobia about robots. The title refers to giant city complexes that are necessary because Earth is so overpopulated. While robots are used for labor in outlying “spacer worlds” where the rich live on spacious parcels, the robots are outlawed on Earth. A Spacer Ambassador lobbying to loosen Earth’s anti-robot restrictions is found dead, his chest imploded by an energy blaster, and a detective is matched with a human-looking robot to solve the crime. Hobson is repped by CAA and Energy Entertainment.

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I see they've already twisted an element of the story.In the novel, robots aren't banned on Earth. They are resented because they have assumed some lower-level jobs and have displaced humans from them. My bet on this, if it is made, is that Lije Baley gets a new name, has no family and is about 35 years old instead of pushing 50. Daneel Olivaw will be human-looking but closer to Data than to Jude Law (who looks almost exactly like the character in the book).

Please, please, be better than I, Robot.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Claude Brodesser-Akner wrote:After fifteen years of movie destruction, director Roland Emmerich and his old producing and screenwriting partner Dean Devlin are now putting the finishing touches on back-to-back sequel scripts to 1996's Independence Day, the $800 million worldwide hit that first taught them the importance of blowing major landmarks to hell. But whether Will Smith will be back to to welcome more aliens to Earth as Captain Stephen Hiller is still a question mark: Fox started working on structuring a deal to sign him back in early 2009, but the world's last bankable action star was seeking $50 million to shoot both ID2 and ID3 back-to-back, and Fox balked at so large a price tag in combination with Emmerich’s own hefty salary demands to direct. “The delay wasn’t about whether they both wanted to make the movie,” explains one insider, “It had more to do with ‘Whose dick is bigger?’" Nothing has been yet settled, because almost a year ago all concerned parties elected to retreat and focus instead on first getting the scripts right; they're expected to be delivered to Fox by early to mid-December of this year at the latest. Insiders tell us that Fox is willing to make the movies without Smith, if necessary, but he is what helps make the films a sure thing: Can the stuck-in-neutral movie business, let alone Fox, afford to lose him?

Little is known about the two ID sequels, other than that they will tell a single story, but will be engineered more in the Back to the Future Parts 2 and 3 sequential-but-not-imperative model than like the last two Harry Potters, which was essentially one movie split in two. As our insider puts it, “They’re intended to be fulfilling movies onto themselves — you could see each separately and enjoy them — but they tell one big story.” The fact that they will be shot back-to-back is especially appealing to Smith, who's sought to spend more time with his family in recent years.

Fox is wary of the kind of hard-line, high-priced negotiations that Smith engaged in with Sony in 2002 before committing to Men in Black II, a film that ended up being a payday in search of a movie. And clearly Men in Black III looms large in their minds; its pricey shoot dragged on after script problems quickly became production problems. But on the other hand, with box office stagnating, Hollywood desperately needs Smith, its only remaining take-it-to-the-bank action star, back making blockbusters again. (His last film was 2008's weepy Seven Pounds.)

Total box office has been essentially running in place, buoyed largely by 3-D ticket price increases rather than admissions, which have been down in recent years: In 2010, total attendance was down 5.36 percent from 2009. And year to date, box-office revenue is down about 4.4 percent compared with the same point last year. This period also corresponds with Smith's extended hiatus from moviemaking; the actor has been focusing more on his family life and assisting his kids' efforts to in break into the movie business. (Smith is developing a remake of Annie for his daughter, Willow, and producing a sequel to The Karate Kid for his son, Jaden.)

Usually, Smith shoots two movies a year. But in the last three years, he’s made only one film — Men in Black III — which won’t arrive in theaters until next year. As a result, Hollywood has been shorted about five Will Smith movies in the last three years. Run the numbers, and one quickly sees just how much box office Hollywood is missing out on: From 2005 to 2008, Will Smith starred in five films, grossing, in total, a little over $2 billion worldwide. This is not to say that a few four-quadrant Smith films can jump-start the entire industry, but him getting back in the game can only help things.

While Smith hasn't committed to the ID sequels, Fox can take comfort in the fact that Smith does not have a next picture completely locked. While it’s been announced that Smith is attached (with his son, Jaden) to star in the M. Night Shyamalan film One Thousand A.E. at Sony Pictures, studio insiders tell Vulture that the studio is going extra-slow on preproduction, marking time to avoid any repeats of its hellish MIB3 shoot and doing everything it can to lock down its story line.

“It’s complicated because of where and how [Smith] wants to shoot; he wants to be close to home, to the kids," explains our spy, adding, "There’s also been talks about him wanting to include Jada and maybe even Willow in the movie, too. [Sony] just managed to get through the mire that was Men in Black 3, and so they’re just trying to avoid anything remotely similar. They want the story straight, and want Will to sign off on it, totally, before they proceed.”

All this bodes well for Independence Day. After all, its other star, Bill Pullman, is clearly ready to go.

UPDATE: Fox informs me that the studio will wage an Oscar campaign for Andy Serkis for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

MIKE FLEMING wrote:When Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘s $453 million worldwide gross was listed as a bright spot in the quarterly earnings of beleaguered NewsCorp, you know a sequel is a big 20th Century Fox priority. So who did the studio lock in first? No, it wasn’t James Franco or Freida Pinto. The studio just closed what I’m told is a healthy seven-figure deal for Andy Serkis to reprise his role as lead ape Caesar. Serkis had only signed on for one movie, so his reps had leverage in ensuring that he come back to continue leading the ape takeover in multiple future installments of the series.

Director Rupert Wyatt’s original deal came with a sequel option, so he’s locked. So are screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who are producing with Chernin Entertainment’s Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark. The studio is still in the idea stage and the sequel hasn’t been dated for release. As for Franco and Pinto, those decisions will likely be made when the direction of the film crystallizes. The studio certainly has the leverage there; the clever construct of the first film ended with a wallop that makes everyone expendable.

In his quiet way, the chameleonic Serkis has proven to be a valuable commodity in three CG-driven franchises, and he’s being paid quite well for all of them. Serkis had no options for The Hobbit from The Lord of the Rings, and received a windfall payday to reprise his Gollum character in the two films. Serkis has wrapped his acting work on those films, but continues as Peter Jackson’s second unit director. Serkis does have an option deal for the sequel to the Steven Spielberg-directed The Adventures of Tin Tin, and will reprise as Captain Haddock in the sequel that Peter Jackson is scheduled to direct next year.

The big question is whether Fox should break ground and campaign for an Oscar for Serkis’s work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. That notion was explored in the press when the film was released last summer. Serkis certainly lent a sense of humanity to Caesar and grounded the film. Academy voters haven’t yet paid much attention to actors behind CG performance capture creations, though. Serkis could have been nominated for his groundbreaking work in The Lord of the Rings, and was ignored. He’s repped by Lou Coulson in the UK and Principal Entertainment.

Edward Douglas wrote:This year's IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards just wrapped and we should have a full report and recap in the next 24 hours, but one of the people presented with a special tribute at this year's awards was 20th Century Fox Chairman and CEO of Filmed Enetertainment Tom Rothman, not one most would normally associate with independent film, although Ang Lee and Jim Jarmusch, the two filmmakers who presented Rothman's tribute, reminded the audience they all worked together earlier in their respective careers.

After the presentation, ComingSoon.net had a chance to speak with Rothman, and eventually we got around to talking about Fox's two successful franchise reboots this year, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men: First Class.

Rothman confirmed to us that they plan on continuing on from both movies and they're going to try to get both Rupert Wyatt and Matthew Vaughn back to direct once they get the scripts together. "Both of them were really great scripts and so we have to be sure to get great scripts again," Rothman said. "We're working hard on the scripts for both of them, but we have every hope of moving forward with them."

Look for more from our interview with Tom Rothman in the next couple days, as well as our Gotham Awards recap.

Brendan Bettinger wrote:Ever since 2008′s Iron Man, Marvel Studios has carved out a profitable niche in Hollywood independently financing the film adaptations of the Marvel comics. However, because of the nature of film rights, a few of Marvel’s most popular properties are housed at other studios. Fox has three: X-Men, Daredevil, and Fantastic Four. In a recent interview, Fox executive Tom Rothman stressed the studio is eager to continue development on the next chapter in those respective stories—a sequel to X-Men: First Class and reboots for Daredevil and Fantastic Four.

Critics loved First Class, and $353 million worldwide is nothing to sneeze at. But it is the lowest grosser among the five movies in the X-Men franchise. Still, Fox would like a sequel if they can get the script right:

“It’s ‘go’ in the sense that we’re trying like hell. We’re trying as hard as we can. We really want to do it. We’re planning to do it. But the reason, in addition to [Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy] and Matthew Vaughn, that it was as good as it was that the script was really good. The key to making a great continuing franchise is to have a great script, so we’re working hard on it.”

We credit director Matthew Vaughn for much of what made First Class great. But it is not certain that Vaughn will return to direct future X-Men installments:

“I know he’d like to. We certainly would like him to. But it’s a matter of, as I said, getting a script that’s really worthy.”

As for Daredevil and Fantastic Four, Rothman confirmed that Fox is working on reboots for both, and indicated what they’d like to accomplish:

“Daredevil is still with David Slade. It’s in development now. We’re working on it and Fantastic Four. I think for all of us, the bar has been raised, so we’ve got to aim high now. Marvel’s done a terrific job with their films. Where our Marvel movies are concerned or other movies like that. It’s like what we had with Planet of the Apes this summer. I think it’s important for us to really aim high and deliver an A-level experience to the audience.”

Fox, and Rothman in particular, has taken heat in the past for a cynical, corporate approach to filmmaking. But the studio did provide a great summer for film geeks with the one-two punch of First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I can only dream that is, as Rothman implies, the status quo at Fox from here on out.

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Brendon Connelly wrote:There’s a mix of science and science fiction in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and it’s hard to discuss the specific blend without wandering into spoilers. Suffice to say, the film features an entire cast of characters who are changing, and rapidly, and from what we know from the original films in the series, sooner or later they’re going to be able to speak.

Inidentally, Jaffa says that the title for the next film is Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Part Two and he may be joking, though it doesn’t sound like it as much as he’s just not wanting to reveal anything. Still, there’s an inference, I think, that the new story will be catching up with the apes while they’re still very much on the ascendency.

Here’s Silver, raising one of the key questions surrounding the next installment:

We’re working on the sequel right now, to the prequel, and so the excitement is – I’m not gonna tell you, but – are they gonna talk or not? Part of the challenge was how to get across what was happening between the apes without words. In the end I think it was a good challenge for us. It created better storytelling.

Hmmm. Just reading into that, and perhaps far more than I should be, my hunch would be that the apes are going to learn to speak as the second film goes along. It’s a rich area and I think there’s a lot of story in it.

What this means, I think, is more key ape roles for actors, perhaps including some motion capture debutantes. The casting could get very interesting.

Elsewhere in the podcast there’s much talk of the dialogue-free storytelling, not to mention the long history and transformation of the film’s script, it’s particular narrative quirks, the interweaving of Apes mythology and plenty more.

Goldsmith’s podcast is, overall, the best one out there and this episode is one of my favourites in some time.

Rachel Abrams & Jeff Sneider wrote:Though Marvel owns and finances properties like "Iron Man" and "Thor," Fox controls "Fantastic Four" in perpetuity -- as long as it continues making the films. Fox has the same arrangement on Marvel Comics properties "X-Men," "Daredevil" and "Silver Surfer." Marvel is a producer and financial participant through a licensing agreement.

"This was never a film saying Apes are good, humans are bad or apes are bad. It was always about the difficult gray areas of a species dominating a planet. I think where ever it goes - and it is in its infancy in terms of where we are taking the story - it will certainly have conflict and it will certainly have Caesar having to make decisions about managing his own kind and, also, the survivors of the virus and making sure they can co-exist. I believe that's where it is going."

NIKKI FINKE wrote:Fox Filmed Entertainment chief Tom Rothman is one of the more controversial execs in Hollywood. When he gets it wrong, he gets it very very wrong. But when he gets it right, others copy him. I’m told that Rothman had a specific POV going into Chronicle: something original and fresh and strong that connected with young audiences who’ve been missing from the multiplexes during 2011. And he wanted it made with new storytellers and new actors. Now this weekend’s good reviews, ‘B’ CinemaScore, and young-skewing numbers (exit polls show 57% of filmgoers were under 25) indicate Mission Accomplished. Another in a successful line of found footage movies since 1999′s The Blair Witch Project, little 84-minute and mild PG-13 Chronicle cost just $12 million to make in South Africa and Canada with tax credits is from first-time director Josh Trank who also directed some scenes for the Paranormal Activity 2 DVD and screenwriter Max Landis, the son of infamous John Landis. Produced by John Davis and Adam Schroeder, the film plays like a personal documentary from an unseen amateur filmmaker as it chronicles the story of 3 teen angsters with telekinetic powers. Best of all, the pic takes aim at smug Seattle. Fox was hoping to open to an $8M weekend, so the $22M result should make the arrogant Rothman even more insufferable. His studio owns international, too, where it will top the UK, Australia, others. How it’ll fare on Super Bowl Sunday remains the only question mark, but Fox stresses that the audience is not just males. (And the big game, by the way, has a 50/50 male/female audience.)

There’s so much interesting, not the least of which is the marketing. Fox sold the movie with zero newspaper ads. And used Twitter quotes instead of review quotes, even though reviews were strong. There also was an all-Skype press junket tapping into the tech theme from the movie. The first trailer on YouTube garnered more than 6 million views in a week and extraordinary social feedback. After the trailer launched on MTV.com in October, Fox found that the conversations/engagements it spawned was more than 15 million interactions in just 2 days on Facebook. (“That’s like everyone in greater LA talking about Chronicle 15 weeks before they can see it in theaters,” an exec tells me. “This was a huge signal for how people were responding to the materials.” The recent viral stunt – ‘Flying Teens’ on YouTube – exceeded all expectations and video was featured on national and local news outlets. Online influencers played a huge part: in early January Fox held a digital press summit and debuted never-before-seen footage to a select group of digital press. A custom film-themed video was released by DeStorm called “If DeStorm Had Telekinesis” which included a cameo of that other YouTube star Mystery Guitar Man. On January 8th during the Atlanta Falcons-New York Giants game, Fox sponsored the first ever motion picture-themed QR-coded “billboard” which flashed onto TV screens.

MIKE FLEMING wrote:All this will have to wait until Wyatt does a sequel to Apes, which is a high priority for Fox. The studio has an option on Wyatt’s services and he most assuredly is doing this next. Fox has been keen on this since the studio locked in Andy Serkis for a repeat at Caesar, the lead talking primate.

Sophie A. Schillaci wrote:It took 16 years, but Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich finally are set to bring their beloved and patriotic Independence Day back to the big screen.

"I can tell you that Roland and I have been working together for the first time in 11 years and we’re every excited about the idea of doing it," Devlin said during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "Whether or not we can make this happen, if we can get all the pieces to come together, that’s gonna be challenging. But creatively, for the very first time since we did the original, I feel we have a worthy concept, a worthy path to go."

Sophie A. Schillaci wrote:"We resisted doing the sequel for years because we still wanted to honor the first one. The first one gave us all careers, and we really love that movie and loved the experience," Devlin explained. "We didn’t want to make a movie because it was financially a good idea, we only wanted to do it when we had an idea and a concept that creatively felt like it honored the first one -- that it felt like an organic sequel as opposed to ‘let’s just go make some more money.'

"I feel like we got it," he continued. "I think it took a long time, but I feel like we finally got something that really feels like, 'that’s worth seeing as a sequel to Independence Day.' "

Devlin remained tight-lipped about how the story would continue, but as for returning cast members, the writer-producer conceded: "We’re beginning a long process of talking to everybody. We’ll just have to see what happens."